Self-taught artists craft compelling visions

"Cuckoo, the Bird Lady," by Levent Isik, is on view at Old Dominion… (Mark St. John Erickson/Daily…)

January 25, 2014|Mark St. John Erickson | At a Glance

Give a few minutes to the newest show at the Baron and Ellin Gordon Self-Taught Art Gallery and you'll soon see why this Williamsburg couple spent years chasing down some of the country's best if often unknown folk artists.

Vivid visions and imagination drive the wild, often idiosyncratic works of all three people showcased in this compelling Old Dominion University exhibit, enabling them to overcome and even exploit their lack of academic training through creations that rival the accomplishments of formally educated contemporary talents.

Just take a look at the collection of home-spun sculptures concocted by the late Derek Webster, who habitually turned to gnarled roots, scrap lumber, cast-off shoes and clothing and every kind of bottle cap or crushed can he could find to fabricate a world of strange and bewilderingly animated figures.

Not only do they convey movement and stature in disarmingly lifelike ways but they also bristle with personality and character.

No matter that they often sport more than one head or limbs that sprout with unexpected faces.

What makes you look and then keep looking is a dynamic presence that won't let you go — even after you figure out that all that mystery and magic is rooted in an obsessive bent to improvise and embellish.

"When you study them carefully, you discover pretty quickly that he's working with almost anything he can find — so it's just encrusted," gallery curator Ramona Austin says.

"A lot of his figures look [like] they revealed themselves while he was working."

Made up of scores of works by three singular artists, "The Big Story: The Art of Levent Isik, Ronald Sloan and Derek Webster" draws upon a newly acquired collection of Webster's work, a rich private collection of Sloan's paintings and drawings and plaques on loan from Isik's own personal collection.

Strong narrative impulses tie the trio together, although — like the best contemporary work from more formally trained talents — the stories they offer may be only fragmentary or implied, requiring the viewer to fill in some blanks in order to arrive at the fullest and richest meaning.

Like Webster's quizzical figures, many of Isik's vibrant, carefully sculpted plaques revolve around narratives of character.

In "Cuckoo, the Bird Lady," for example, he combines elements of the carnival sideshow with highly calculated portraiture, not only cloaking his subject in a mysterious black mask but also endowing her mouth with such big white teeth and large red lips and that you can't help but wonder about her story.

Two wispy locks of hair add still more to this tale, especially when combined with her otherwise completely bald head. Then there's her stylish if low-cut red-and-white striped dress, not to mention the elegant string of pearls draped around her neck.

"Red Sonja" teems with personality and character, too, as you might expect from any powerful, half-nude woman who confronts the world in red high-heeled boots, black fish-net stockings, red panties and bare breasts as well as a black mask and a long black whip.

"There's a sideshow feeling to all his work," Austin says, pointing to Isik's frequent use of such stage devices as proscenium arches and curtains.

"These are tableaux that capture moments from larger stories — stories that the viewer completes after seeing what Isik has created."

Sloan's images are easily the most difficult and wincing works here, engaging viewers in a confusing, often piercing psychological realm fueled by troubling memories and deep emotions.

In paintings such as "Memories," especially, he makes you grapple with a bleak make-believe world peopled by figures that look like wraithlike apparitions. "I Don't Believe You," "The Lost Friend" and "Seeking Answers" deliver still sharper punches by combining these nightmarish realms with an implied biographical association.

Not every picture Sloan shows here will make you flinch, however.

In "The Magical Day" and "The New Pool," especially, he reaches deep within for memories of another sort.

What results are images as bright and wonderful as the others are dark.

Erickson can be reached at 757-247-4783. Find his visual arts stories at dailypress.com/entertainment/arts and Facebook.com/dpentertainment.

Want to go?

"The Big Story: The Art of Levent Isik, Ronald Sloan and Derek Webster"